Dare to Nominate Your Firm For This

"Lawyers and innovation are not words that people automatically put together," is how the FT starts its announcement of the launch of a ranking of the most innovative law firms, and individual lawyers, co-sponsored by the accountancy BDO Stoy Hayward and managed by RSG Consulting, a new firm to me identified as "a legal research company."

Why this?  Why now?  As the FT explains it, the world is changing:

• "Before 2000, no law firm could claim to be genuinely global."   Did you notice that's no longer so?
• Clients are becoming savvier and more demanding about fees and firm selection.
• The Clementi Commission has set the stage for what I believe will be law-firm-land's equivalent of the "Cambrian Explosion."
• "Deliver[ing] the law and deliver[ing] it competently" are merely, as they should be, table stakes; clients are demanding more.
• Top law firms are rethinking aspects of the traditional partnership model and looking at management techniques of large corporations.

And, most simply, the existing array of awards for innovation in business have heretofore simply ignored law firms; the FT plans to fill this gap.

Here are the submission guidelines.  The categories are:

• value for money
• billing
• client service
• management
• use of technology
• legal expertise/strategy
• HR/employee relations
• pro bono/corporate social responsibility (CSR)
• general/open, and
• individual lawyers.

Submissions should be no longer than 1,000 words and are due 5:30 pm Friday, May 5.  Let the games begin.